By Diane Garrett - Variety - Georges Chamchoum has a simple mission: He wants to share the rich and varied offerings from Asian filmmakers with Hollywood players and beyond. A cultural counter force to Washington isolationism, he has lined up a wide array of screenings, panels and tributes for the third annual Asian World Film Festival. The eight-day event kicks off Oct. 25 in Culver City and concludes Nov. 2, sponsored in part by Variety. This year’s installment is the broadest yet in scope. Movies range from “Dearest Sister,” the first film from Laos submitted for a foreign-language Oscar, and “Little Gandhi,” Syria’s first entry in that category, to pioneering Hollywood drama “Joy Luck Club,” part of a beefed-up Asian-American focus.

Jimmy Cuneyt Gurkan - Los Angeles, CA – A record 92 countries have submitted films for consideration in the Foreign Language Film category for the 90th Academy Awards®. Haiti, Honduras, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Mozambique, Senegal and Syria are first-time entrants. Turkey has selected Can Ulkay's debut feature Ayla: The Daughter of War as its candidate in the race for best foreign-language film in the Oscars. Turkey has submitted films for the foreign-language Academy Award regularly since 1989, with Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Three Monkeys making the shortlist of nine in 2008. No Turkish film has yet won an Oscar.